Meet the tea partier who could throw a safe GOP Senate seat to the Dems.

Ahmed Sharif, the Muslim cabbie at the center of the apparent bias-attack slashing attack, speaks to local media in NYC. Watch the video.

Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi asks is 18,000 blocks away from Ground Zero too close for new mosque project in Tennessee?

A new poll out this morning of the Pennsylvania Senate race shows Rep. Joe Sestak (D) down 40-31 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R). There’s been a fair bit of volatility in the poll numbers over the past couple of months, but if you look at the TPM Poll Average, you see a steady spread for Toomey, with Sestak not really making any headway over the summer: Read More

Eric Kleefeld has a good piece on the disarray Florida Republicans are in right now. Obviously, this has been building for some time, what with the former party chairman under indictment for basically looting party coffers, allegedly, and the Republican governor having abandoned the party before it abandoned him in the U.S. Senate race.

But what really stands out in the piece is the level of animosity between Rick Scott, who just won the party nomination for governor, and Bill McCollum, the state’s Republican attorney general whom he defeated. As you’ll remember, McCollum declined to concede the race on the night of the election Tuesday. Yesterday, he went ahead and conceded, but now he’s declining to endorse Scott. That in and of itself isn’t terribly unusual. Oftentimes, the losing candidate needs a little time to lick the wounds. Read More

Robert Reich checks in on the “Ground Zero Mosque” hysteria and what it means.

It’s still sort of a mystery just what was going on in 21 year old Michael Enright’s head when he tried to slash the throat of Ahmed Sharif, a 43 year old cabbie from Queens. But a spokesperson for the Muslim Public Affairs Council says it’s a sign that the “hateful rhetoric” surrounding the mosque controversy has consequences.

As we noted earlier, Michael Enright, the guy accused of the bias stabbing of a Muslim cabbie last worked/volunteered at a place called Intersections International, a group that describes itself as an interfaith group “dedicated to promoting peace and understanding.” Our Rachel Slajda just interviewed them for their reactions to Enright’s arrest.

Incumbent but unelected Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) does not seem to be off to a great start in his campaign against recently nominated Ken Buck, the Tea Partyish candidate who beat the establishment Republican in the race. A new poll from Reuters today gives Buck a 9 point lead — Bennet 40%, Buck 49%.

Now a key point to bear in mind is that Buck was the guy they wanted to win the Republican primary.

But here’s the thing. Here’s the trendline for Bennet v. Buck … Read More

Former Bush and Reagan advisor and arch-neoconservative Ken Adelman says he fully supports the Cordoba House project in Lower Manhattan and is “disappointed” that former President George W. Bush hasn’t spoken up in support of the project.

Earlier this month, a spokesman for the former president said he had no comment on the controversy.